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Mar 26, 2017

Fear Not, Little Flock

Fear Not, Little Flock

Passage: Luke 12:32

Keywords: command, faith, fear, gift, giving, kingdom, promise, shepherd

Summary:

This message looks at one verse that can transform all our lives when it comes to things we fear, hope for and need

Detail:

“Fear Not, Little Flock”

Luke 12:32

John Moody

Mosiac Fellowship

March 26, 2017

If you have your Bible with you this morning, will you open it up to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12? We're going to spend our remaining time this morning taking a look at a really amazing verse nestled in this chapter.

And I know what you're thinking: One verse? Really, John? You're going to spend your whole sermon on just one verse?

Yep.  I’m planning to spend our time looking at one verse, and there's enough great truth in this verse that we could easily spend hours on it, and even then we wouldn't exhaust it's riches.

Brothers and sisters, the Word of God had depths that you will miss if you just skim it! Think of it this way: If you rake, you get leaves - if you dig, you get diamonds! And there are some beautiful diamonds of truth in this verse. So let's get out our shovels and see what God has for us in his word this morning, OK?

The verse we're going to look at this morning is verse 32. If you don't have your Bible with you this morning, it's up on the screen so you can follow along. This is Jesus talking, and this is what he says:

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Before we start looking at the content of what Jesus says in this verse, I want to take a minute to point out the structure of this verse. It's a simple English sentence.

You've got a command ("fear not, little flock"), followed by a reason or justification or basis for that command.

We use this pattern - command, then reason - every day in our ordinary speech.

"Take an umbrella with you, because it's supposed to rain this afternoon." What's the reason for the command to take an umbrella? It's supposed to rain!

Don't eat that cookie - you'll ruin your appetite for supper! Why must you not eat the cookie? Because if you do, you won't eat supper!

Remember that angel who spoke to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born? "Fear not [the same command!], for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." Why were they not to fear the angels who suddenly appeared out of thin air with no warning? (Because, I would have been a little fearful at that moment!) Because the angels were bringing some great news to them of the birth of the Savior!

You get the pattern. We have a command, and then a reason for why the command is given.

So my plan is this: We'll look at the command that Jesus gives, then look at the reason he gives for the command, then we'll circle back and look at the command again in light of the reason Jesus gives.

  1. The Command: Fear not, little flock

And as far as commands go, this one is really, really simple to understand. "Fear not." "Do not be afraid." "Don't be anxious." "Don't worry."

And that's really hard for some people. Some people have to deal with fears that many of us don't. Psychiatrists and psychologist have identified hundreds of phobias - fears that don't seem to make any rational sense to the rest of us, but to the person who suffers from these phobias, it's deadly serious.

Some people are afraid suffer from claustrophobia - they're afraid of being in an tight, enclosed space like an elevator or closet.

Some people have the opposite problem - they're agoraphobic - deathly afraid of being with large open spaces.

Many, many people are afraid of doing what I'm doing right now - speaking in front of a group of people. In fact, one famous survey found that fear of speaking in public was the number one fear among adult Americans. Do you know what was number 2 on the list? Death!

Other fears are more transitory. Like, for instance, last Thursday night, when the Gonzaga-West Virginia game was tied with under 3 minutes to go. Things were feeling a bit tense there!

Or more seriously, I remember one Friday afternoon 12 years ago, when I got called into my boss's office and laid off. No warning, no severance package, just "collect your belongings and we'll walk you to the door." I remember driving home that afternoon, wondering how in the world I was going to provide for my family. I was so afraid, and many of you know what I'm talking about. When we don't know if we're going to have the things we need, it fills us with fear, and we respond in one of two ways:

  • Either we become paralyzed by the fear so that we can't act, or...
  • We try to power through the fear by sheer force of will. "I'm not really afraid!" "I got this!" "I am tough!" We'll psych ourselves up, to try to convince ourselves that we're not really afraid.

But we know the truth. We’re scared spitless! Sometimes life is scary, and we become afraid.

Well, Jesus says, "Fear not." In fact, 14 different times in the gospels we see Jesus saying "fear not" or "don't be afraid" or "don't be anxious" to someone. So this isn't a one-off thing that Jesus said, something that we can say to ourselves "well, he only said it once, and you know -context and all that" and pretend that it never happened. No, he said it 14 times! When Jesus says something 14 different times, we would do well to pay attention, don't you think?

And then in our text this morning, he adds this term of endearment (I guess) - he calls us "little flock". At first glance, that does NOT sound like an encouragement! Jesus calls his disciples sheep! And not a mighty assembly of sheep that cover the countryside, striking fear into the hearts of rival flocks of lesser sheep. No, he calls them a little flock. The word "puny" comes to mind!

We don't do a lot of sheep-tending here in downtown Spokane, but let me tell you something about sheep: They're easily spooked. They're fearful. And they're not all that bright either.

That's why sheep need a shepherd!

A shepherd has two main jobs: Provide sustenance and security for the sheep. Make sure their physical needs are met, and make sure that they don't fall prey to wolves, mountain lions, or other predators.

And if you think about it, most of our fears fall into those two categories, just like those clueless sheep. We're afraid that our physical needs won't be met, and we're afraid that something bad might happen to us or to those that are close to us. We need a shepherd to feed us and to fight for us - to provide for us and protect us.

The words "little flock" may sound like it's calling attention to our pathetic neediness - and in a way it is. But it's also calling attention to a great truth we see time and again in Scripture: We are a flock. We're not a loose band of wild sheep. Which means...we have a shepherd.

When Jesus says to us, "Fear not, little flock", he's reminding us: "You're mine. I am your good shepherd. It is my job to watch over you, to provide for you and protect you. There is no danger, no peril in this world that you will have to face alone."

And if Jesus had stopped there, we would have had encouragement enough to get us through the fears that we face. The fact that Jesus is our shepherd is a powerful antidote to fearfulness.

But he doesn't stop there - it gets better. Much better. We've seen the command - now, let's a look at the reason for that command.

  1. The Reason: It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

“…For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  What in the world does that mean?  How do we figure out the meaning of that promise? Sometimes, the Bible can seem really intimidating to us. Is it intimidating sometimes to you? Are you thinking something like this: I’m not super-spiritual, I didn’t grow up in church, I don’t understand all of these concepts. How in the world am I supposed to be able to read the Bible and know what it means?

If that’s you, I have some very good news for you.  God gave us the Bible in these things called words.  And when you group the words together, you get sentences.  And words and sentences in the Bible are understood the same way sentences in any other book are understood – by reading the words, figuring out what they mean in the context, and how they fit together into sentences to make coherent thoughts.

Funny story: A couple hundred years ago, when Bible scholars studied the Greek language that the New Testament was written in 2000 years ago, they knew that it was a very different form of the language than what other famous Greek writings were in. It didn’t sound like Plato and Aristotle and Aristophanes.  And scholars decided that this was because the New Testament was written in a special, super-spiritual form of the Greek language, that was fitting for the Word of God to be written down in.

But then, archaeologists started finding other documents that were written in the same dialect of Greek as the New Testaments.  And those newly found documents weren’t scripture or holy books, but things like shopping lists and butcher’s invoices.  The scholars realized that they were completely wrong about the language of the New Testament – it wasn’t some hyper-spiritual “Holy Spirit Greek”, but the Greek of the merchants and housewives and fishermen.

When God gave us the New Testament, he gave it to us in common, everyday language.  And that’s why we translate it into so many languages, and we keep making new translations.  When we hear the King James Bible today, it sounds weird and super-special with all the “thee’s” and “thou’s”, but when it was first translated 400 years ago, it was written in what was the common English of the people. The scholars were all using Latin!

What’s my point?  The point is simply this – God put his Word into language you can understand, because he wants you to be able to read it for yourself and understand it! So it is not above you, it is not too difficult, you don’t need a Bible college degree to know what it means.  Sure, parts of it are harder than others, but it’s not beyond your grasp!  Plus, God has given us his Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, so it’s not like we don’t have any help, right?

So let’s take a look at this promise and figure out what it means.  There are four big concepts in this sentence, and we need to look at each of them.

  • Father
  • Good pleasure
  • Give
  • Kingdom
  1. Father

OK, let’s start with “Father”.  Obviously, this is talking about God, right? But sometimes, we’re so used to seeing God referred to as “Father” in Scripture that we just blow by it without giving it a lot of thought.  But that’s exactly what we need to be very careful NOT to do, because there is something very important that Jesus wants to convey with by referring to God as “your Father” in this verse.

But in order to grasp this, we first need to clear up a possible misconception.  There’s some bad thinking out there in the world – and some in the church as well – about what God being our Father really means.  Many people think like this: “God is the Father of all humanity, and we are all his children.”  We’re all one in the brotherhood of humanity, and God is our loving Father.  Have you ever heard this kind of thinking before?

Would it surprise to you to know that the Bible NEVER talks about God’s Fatherhood in this way?  God is the creator of everyone in the world – the Bible affirms that clearly. God is the sovereign Lord over everyone in the world, whether they acknowledge Him as Lord or not.  Again, the Bible makes that clear.  But not everyone can call God “father” – not everyone is his child.

So, if not everyone is God’s child, then what’s the difference between someone who can rightly call God their Father and one who cannot?  The Bible clearly answers this question.  John 1:11-12, talking of Jesus, says “He came to his own [the Jews], and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”  That’s how you become a child of God, how you get the privilege of having God as your Father.  You get it by receiving Jesus – by believing in his name.

It can’t be any clearer than that.  If you have received Jesus by faith, then God is your Father and you are his child.  If you have not received Jesus by faith – if you have not turned from your sins and embraced him as your Savior and your Lord and the great Treasure of your life – if you have not done that, you are not God’s child. God is not your Father. But if that’s you, then I want you to know that you are not without hope.  The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, then you will be saved. It’s that simple, and I hope and pray that you will not leave here today without placing your faith in Jesus. Please, talk to someone today before you leave – whether it’s me or Pastor John or Jesse or Bob – talk to someone about faith in Jesus.

  1. Good pleasure

But if God is your Father and you are his child, then this promise is for you. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” “Good pleasure” means just that. God does not give his children gifts begrudgingly. He does not have to be coerced into loving you and doing you good. No, if you are his child, then he is pleased to bless you, not because you are awesome and holy and righteous – you’re not – but because HE is awesome and holy and righteous. And he is your loving Father!

I know some of you had terrible, terrible experiences with your earthly fathers. Some of them were abusive, selfish, angry, or maybe just completely absent. And to you God is saying this morning, “Let me show you how a Father is supposed to love his children.”

In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus says this: “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

One of the things I discovered when I was studying this verse is that the expression translated here as “good pleasure” is the same expression we hear from heaven at the baptism of Jesus, when God the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with you I am well-pleased.” We could translate our verse this morning like this: “Fear not, little flock, for the Father was well-pleased to give you the kingdom.”

  1. Give

And note here that Jesus says that this kingdom that the Father is well-pleased to give to us, is in fact GIVEN to us. It’s not something we earned. We didn’t rack up enough Heavenly credits to trade in to earn this kingdom. It is GIVEN. It is a GIFT. God is not giving the kingdom to you because you did anything special. You didn’t earn it. You couldn’t earn it if you tried.

  1. The Kingdom

So now we have to ask the question: What is the kingdom that Jesus is talking about in this verse? What exactly is the nature of this gift that our Father is well-pleased to give us? What could be so powerful, so stupendous, that receiving it from our heavenly Father is enough to conquer the fears in our lives?  Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God over 30 times, and that’s just in Luke’s gospel!  It’s probably the major theme of Jesus’ preaching ministry – but WHAT IS IT?  He mentions it enough that his hearers must have had some idea of what He meant, otherwise he would just have been spouting gibberish half the time!

Well, it turns out that the idea of the kingdom of God was very well-known and well-understood by pretty much everybody in the first century when Jesus spoke these words.  There were disagreements on the details, but people had a pretty good idea of the basic idea.  Living 2000 years later, we don’t have the same worldview as the average first-century Palestinian Jew, so let me take a quick minute to get you up to speed.  I’ve found understanding this mindset to be really helpful in understanding much of the New Testament.

In the mind of the Jew, all of history we divided into two ages –the present age and the age to come.  The present age was characterized by the rule of evil and the subjugation of God’s people.  They were oppressed by both the spiritual forces of evil – Satan and his minions – but also by the worldly rulers of the day.  Israel was under the rule of Rome, and Caesar and his representatives called the shots.  They didn’t have much in the way of self-rule.

But they were not without hope.  Because they believed in a future age, the age to come, where God’s people would no longer be under the thumb of the world powers or the demonic forces. They would be free to worship their God, because God would rule, the forces of evil would be defeated, including death itself, and justice would roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  This age to come was called by many names, but the most common one was the Kingdom of God.

So how would the present evil age give way to the Kingdom of God? God would intervene in human history by sending his personal representative. This divine agent was called by many names, but one of the most popular was taken from Daniel 7, where he is referred to as the “Son of Man”. Elsewhere, he is called the “anointed one”, or “messiah”. But on a day of God’s choosing, the great Day of the Lord that the prophets spoke of, the Son of Man would bring God’s judgment on the powers of evil and set up an eternal kingdom.

So when Jesus shows up, calling himself “Son of Man”, and speaking a lot about the Kingdom of God, well, you can see why they got a little excited!

Now there’s a LOT more that could be said about the Kingdom of God, and we obviously don’t have time this morning to discuss even a small fraction of it. But you get the gist – we live in the present evil age, but at some point, God will send his representative to bring that age to an end, utterly defeat the powers of darkness, defeat death itself and bring about the eternal Kingdom of God, where God reigns over all in righteousness and justice.

But there’s more to the story, as there usually is with Jesus.

You see, Jesus is really good at throwing curve balls at us, and he threw a massive curve ball at everyone as his teaching ministry progressed. You see, people were really starting to like this idea of Jesus bringing the Kingdom of God into being. The crowds were gathering, there was a lot of talking, and there were even a couple attempts to make Jesus king by force!

But then Jesus started saying things like “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”  The Son of Man – the Messiah – dying? “That’s not going to work for us, Jesus. You’re supposed to conquer Rome for us, remember?”  They didn’t have a category in their thinking for a dying Messiah!  (Which is kind of funny, because the whole thing is there in Isaiah 53, but they missed it!)

But Jesus keeps talking like this, and the crowds mostly dwindle, and eventually Jesus goes and gets himself arrested, rejected, and ultimately killed on a Roman cross.  And that seems like the end, right? You can’t be the Messiah if you’re dead, right?

But Jesus, just like he said he would, suddenly stops being dead, which makes for an interesting twist on their two-age worldview.  Because now, we have a risen Messiah, which tells us that the kingdom of God has in a very real sense arrived on the scene – after all, death has obviously been dealt a pretty nasty blow by the resurrection of Jesus!  So the kingdom is here, but it’s not entirely here, because evil has not yet been defeated and judged.

And that’s where we live today, in something of an overlap between the present evil age and the kingdom of God.  The forces of evil were defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the gospel is spreading across the world, so the kingdom is coming.  But it’s not fully here yet – we still await the final defeat of death, the final judgment of evil, and the day when, in Tolkien’s brilliant turn of phrase, “everything sad will become untrue.”

That’s the kingdom of God.  Here in part, in resurrection power, transforming lives through the gospel, giving us power through the Spirit to accomplish His work in the world, and one day, when Jesus returns, coming in its fullness.

Luke 18:29-30 shows this dual reality: “And he said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.’”

So, let’s circle back and look at the whole promise: “it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  What Jesus is saying is this: “As a beloved child of God the Father, he is pleased to give you, as an unearned gift, both Spirit-enabled life now that far outweighs anything you might lose in this life, but also an eternity of fellowship with God in his eternal kingdom.”

  • The Command In Light of the Promise

And now we can begin to see how this promise can give us strength in our battle against fear, don’t we?  Earlier, I said that the two big types of fear that we have to deal with are issues of sustenance and issues of security.  Will we have what we need, and will we be safe?

If you still have your Bible open to Luke 12:32, let’s take a look at the surrounding verses, because Jesus makes this command and promise in the context of a discussion about material needs. Let’s star in verse 29:

And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. 

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 

That’s pretty audacious, isn’t it?  Don’t worry about things like food or clothing or shelter, but instead, sell your stuff and give it to those in need.  That’s a 180-degree turn, isn’t it?  You were fearful of not having stuff, so you’d be tempted to hold tightly to what you have. But now, I’m telling you to be willing to part with what do you have to help others.

The only way such a turnabout can happen is if we are so confident that God is taking care of us that we can break our love affair with stuff and give generously to others.  But if we really understand that God has given us so much now, and the fullness of his Kingdom awaits us, then stuff isn’t going to have such a hold on our hearts, is it?

You see, you don’t break the hold that possessions have on your life by gritting your teeth and pretending to be generous when you’re not feeling it.  You break the hold that possessions have on your life by realizing that you have a far greater possession that you can never lose, so you’re just getting rid of the stuff that doesn’t really matter in the long run!

Hebrews 10:34 describes some believers who grasped this truth: “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”

Besides, if God has been so generous with you, how can you not be generous with others?

What about safety? How does being part of the Kingdom of God help us fight our fears that something bad will happen to us?

Well, here’s the thing – Jesus never promised that nothing bad would happen to us. But what he does promise is two things. First, he promises that he will be with us: “For I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

For the second one, and this is what I’ll leave you with this morning, look at Luke 21: 16-18. This passage blows my mind every time I read it.

“You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish.”

Now, if you’re like me, you have to do a double-take on that. “Some of you they will put to death…but not a hair on your head will perish.” How exactly does that work, Jesus?

It works because death is not the last word for us! Think about it – the worst thing that anyone can do to you is kill you. But for the Christian, that’s just a one-way ticket to the presence of Jesus! Paul said, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain!” What can they ultimately do to you, Christian, if your Father delights to give you eternal life in the Kingdom of God? The worst thing they can do to you… is the best thing they can do to you!

So yes, I know. I get it. Overcoming fear is hard. Living the kind of gutsy, fearless life that Jesus calls you to seems impossible. And it is impossible. Unless you are his child, who is an heir of the Kingdom of God, who is living by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, with utter confidence that your eternity is secure and that your present circumstances are in God’s hands.

 

“Fear not, little flock - you beautiful, puny, beloved flock - because your Father’s good pleasure is to give you the Kingdom.”